


Us

by thelongcon (rainer76)



Category: Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: M/M, Smut, Unrealistic Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-18
Updated: 2014-04-18
Packaged: 2018-01-19 20:35:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1483024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainer76/pseuds/thelongcon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Never read the comic-books, be warned.  My last story was a character piece so, um, yeah, let's say this story really, really is not, and if you're still willing to read it knowing the above, then have at it, but it's a weird one.  :)</p>
    </blockquote>





	Us

**Author's Note:**

> Never read the comic-books, be warned. My last story was a character piece so, um, yeah, let's say this story really, really is not, and if you're still willing to read it knowing the above, then have at it, but it's a weird one. :)

It’s a little Hyundai hatchback, lime-green, a three-door mini-trap with a top speed of oh-my-god- _grandma_ -drives-faster-than-this. The gas tank is already redlining near-empty and the passenger seat is smeared with vicious black.  

Daryl guns it, the engine screaming. The back wheels fishtail across gravel, spitting up stones.  Bam, Daryl hears, bam, _bam._ The windscreen star-bursts.

He’s ducking under the steering wheel, pedal to the metal, slamming through gears, first to second, second to third, third to fifth because he doesn’t have time for this shit, when the wheels dig in and the car bucks forward like a bull from a pen.  He catches a glimpse of Rick, standing in profile, a lethal line of shoulders and extended arm – he hears the Python return fire – then his car slams into a horde.  There’s a different type of scream, front fender crumbling, bodies caught under the wheels; the impact veers the vehicle left.  He hits what’s left of the Savings and Loan bank side-on, drivers-side window flush against the red mortar brick, the four walkers who were closing in on Rick bodily pinned.

Outside, that high velocity weapon lights up.

Bullets zip through the side panelling of the car, inches above his head. Rick’s return fire is a sharp, deadly, retort.

There’s glass all around, in the foot-well, the driver’s seat, slicing up his palms.  His crossbow is dry, all the bolts used up, and without another long-range weapon at hand Daryl had switched his attention from the human faecal matter trying to kill them - to wiping out the dead faecal matter intent on eating them. Eight walkers, two under the wheels, four pinned to the brick, and the remainder lurching bodily against the passenger door, hands slapping against the interior, reaching through the broken window with fingers clawed. 

Daryl catapults up, scrambles over the divider into the back seat, slams one foot hard against the hatch-door and rolls out the back. His foot gets tangled in the cargo net, one of those dumb-ass moves you don’t foresee, and his tumble out the rear door ends in a full body-sprawl, chin slamming hard against the asphalt. He twists about like a fish on a hook, feels the dark shadow eclipse of two walkers closing in, and jerks his boot loose. 

The sky is cobalt blue above, a grotesque face drops to their knees beside him, teeth bared, and then everything is painted red. Dimly, Daryl’s aware the rifle-fire has gone silent in the background, instinctively, he knows the sound of Rick’s Python anywhere.

The walker falls, sprawled half on top of him, leaking necrotic brain matter.  The other is blown backward by a clear metre, shot at point blank range. Quiet, Daryl lays still, chest heaving until Rick looms over him. “Nimble as a cat.” Rick observes, dryly.

“Shuddup.”  Sprawled prone, Daryl lets his head thump against the pavement, works his sore jaw from one side to another. 

He gets a hand in return, Rick hauling him upward, mouth curling as he looks Daryl over.  “Okay?”

“Peaches.”

Standing palm to palm in a handclasp, Rick’s fingers curl loose, a slow drag over Daryl’s lifeline, lingering, before his grip drops away entirely.  Rick’s gaze shifts, a tactical sweep over the street, the corner-store, the bank, toward the park with its playground, where the simulated castle in primary colours stands at proud centre.  The four walkers - lower bodies smashed to a pulp, pinned between the brick wall and the Hyundai - thrash in the background. 

“C’mon.”   Rick takes point; gun pointed low to the earth, body held in a crouch as he approaches the playground at a coyote run.  They find the shooter in a crumpled heap, groaning pitifully, Daryl barely spares him a glance before he snatches up the sniper’s rifle, Rick looks at the wound critically, head tilted to one side, his voice pitched low as he addresses the shooter.  “It’s gut-shot, painful and slow.  Your choice: we wait until you bleed out then I take care of it, or I can shoot you in the head now?”

Daryl glances over sharply.  The sniper’s seventeen, maybe, flaxen blond, healthy skin, one of the Terminus survivors looking for revenge.  “You follow us out, dumbass?”

“I don’t want to die,” the boy chokes.  He rocks himself on the plastic floor, in some half remembered lullaby of comfort; his eyes are wet, cornflower blue.

“Should have kept running, then.”

Rick’s eyelids flicker in what Daryl knows is an admonition to stay quiet, his hand flexes and loosens on the handle of his weapon. Rick crouches beside the kid, thumbs away some of the blood-splatter from his cheek. “Can make this easier on you, son.”

“Don’t want to die,” the boy sobs.  “Please –  please - “

“’S okay,” Rick says, softly.  He doesn’t look anything like Carl – skin, colouration, hair, all of it is wrong - but he can’t be much older than Rick’s boy either. “Hey there, you’re okay...”

Daryl slings the rifle over his shoulder and leaves them to it.  

He reclaims his crossbow first, kills the four walkers pinned to the bank wall, wipes his blade clean, tries to restart the Hyundai with no success then scouts around for his arrows.  Two of the shafts shattered on impact, the third is reusable, but most of his supplies were used up escaping Terminus and he needs to restock pronto.  He’s sitting cross-legged on the hood of the car when Rick re-emerges, striding across the park, the sun setting behind him.  Dusty-boots and a big cannon gun, denim-clad legs that climb up forever. Roland Childe to the Dark Tower Came, Daryl murmurs unheard, and then snorts, because out of the two of them _Merle_ was the reader not Daryl, and he never really understood that poem.

Rick’s face is closed off.

Some people want to be put out of their misery, have it ended sharp and quick - people like Dale and Andrea, who knew the score - others struggle against the slow descent; fight for every breath they draw - people like Jim or Ryan Samuels - they want to live for as long as possible, despite the agony, and take comfort from the overhead sky.  Rick tries to abide by those wishes as much as he can if time permits; what the Governor did to Merle, murdering him, leaving him to turn, that’s the only thing _not_ done. It’s been a good hour since Daryl left the playground, Rick must have sat beside that boy, held his hand until the minute he passed away. 

He slides off the hood of the car and shakes his head at Rick’s unspoken question; an abbreviated shorthand they’re both comfortable with – the vehicle’s not going anywhere – and night is falling fast. “Sit tight for the night? Hook up with the other’s tomorrow?”

Rick nods, wordlessly, every movement wound up tight. When he saved Daryl’s life, Rick must have stood directly behind the second walker, he’s a bloody mess to look at.  He strides past, long legs eating up the ground, heading for the sanctuary of the bank.

Daryl hauls the backpack over one shoulder and wheels into step beside him.

 

 

***

 

Daryl did this for him once, soaked a cloth with precious water and passed it over, insisted that he clean up if only for Carl’s sake; coming from a guy who once hung a daisy-chain of decomposing ears around his neck, Rick figured he must have looked a sight. He watches silently as Daryl does the same now, wetting the cloth, encroaching on Rick’s personal space. 

The boy had cried through most of it, breath hitching in pain, low mutters of _you killed my family_ chased by _I don’t want to die out here, please, please -._ “You think this Eugene guy is straight up?” Rick rasps, trying to fill the silence with something else.

“You want to hash it out now?” The tricks Daryl uses with the others - sidelong glances, shifting his feet, eye contact that’s only fleeting - none of that is employed when it’s only the two of them. Rick waits patiently as Daryl sits down Indian style, directly opposite him, a cloth in one hand, bottle of water in the other.  He shrugs, consideration on his face as he ponders Rick’s question before he answers. “Not everything is infected.”

“Everybody turns.”

“Haven’t been chased by any dogs.  Cows aren’t hungering after us.  Horses don’t take their pound of flesh, and trust me, they’ve got nasty-ass teeth those critters,” Daryl struggles a little, searching for words; he closes his mouth tight then reaffirms.  “The virus doesn’t infect everything.”

Rick draws in a breath, fills his lungs to the brim then releases it.  “I can’t trust him. It’s not in me.” Spent, the wealth of Rick’s trust was parcelled off to lesser causes.  Daryl scoots forward; he doesn’t pass the cloth over this time, more efficient, since Rick can’t see his own face.  Instead he swipes it over Rick’s hand, from palm to knuckle, knuckle to mid-joint, the action neither brusque nor a caress, existing somewhere in between, firm in pressure and sure of its welcome.

“Nobody’s asking you to.” 

Rick watches avidly as his gun-hand is cleaned. “Us,” he says slowly, words slurring, because this is the one certainty he _does_ know. “The only thing worth trusting in: is _us_.” 

Even if Eugene is legitimate Rick will never live to see it, he’ll never see the world he once inhabited rise again; while an antidote helps it’s no protection against walkers’ fixed on tearing people in half - death is still death - and human numbers are pitifully low.  He can’t trust Eugene, can’t make himself believe in immunity, but Rick can see the path that would follow: a formulated antidote given to the remaining survivors, reconsolidation of numbers and organisation of firearms, power, the slow extermination of the walker population, then reclaiming of technology, the older ways of life.  Even if it did go that way, cleaning up the walkers would take decades - this generation - they’d be soldiers til the end.

“Us,” Daryl confirms.  “Is Maggie and Glenn, too.” 

The washcloth slides over an exposed clavicle, finds the dip at Rick’s throat, where the collarbones strive to kiss, where the skin is sweat-slick.  Rick’s shirt lies partially open; his heart beats sluggishly as he relaxes into the touch. Daryl’s been more tactile since Joe and his boys – as if the absence from Rick and company cracked something apart, then realigned it – the small touches Rick were familiar with, the soft brush of knuckles over his belly, a fleeting touch to his forearm, replaced by a sturdier form of contact.  It calms him, but like a lot of things Rick covets, it remains unremarked upon.  It reassures Daryl as well, Rick assumes, and is careful to keep body language open, a silent welcome.

Eyes half lowered, Rick can allow the dirt and grime to be wiped clean; he can tolerate this touch, be left exposed and vulnerable, he can shake out some of his own worries when it's only the two of them.  On the black and white marble floor of the bank, with its mock roman columns, its vaulted ceilings, Rick draws a line in the dust with his forefinger, and closes his eyes, because Daryl is right - animals don’t reanimate, immune in some way – and human scientists couldn’t find a traditional cure when the traditional subjects (mice, pigs, simians) didn’t exhibit the same end result. 

Eugene said every disease had a survival rate - however miniscule - Ebola had a fatality rate of ninety per cent, the black plague in the middle ages ran even hotter, killing ninety-seven per cent of the infected population - but finding a cure for the pestilence they’re knee deep in _now_ was near impossible, because animal experimentation wasn’t an option, and most people who were bit, infected, were also _torn apart_ , stomach’s ripped open, throats chewed on, arms and legs gnawed upon, deader than dead before they stirred to ‘life’ again.

Not viable research subjects - and that one per cent of the population who was immune - didn't survive the attack.

Eugene said he found a cure, when Jenner, and hundreds of other medical personnel (world-wide) couldn’t, and it makes Rick curl his finger tight around the trigger of his weapon, because there’s only one way that could have occurred.  Controlled environment, purposeful infection, no other wounds inflicted other than the initial bite.  Rick looks at Eugene, and feels something coil tight in his stomach, feels his teeth draw back in a snarl every time he stands too close to Rick’s people. He can’t, won’t trust him.   _How many people have you killed?  Why?_

I found a cure for the _future,_ Eugene argued after Terminus, voice devoid of emotion. What wouldn’t you do, to get it all back, the way we used to live?

Us is Maggie and Glenn, Daryl said, voice rough, his touch intimate.

Rick can’t imagine living in anything _other_ than a group, standing back-to-back with weapons bared. He wouldn’t be able to sleep at night without hearing Michonne’s slow breath, the furtive movements of Glenn and Maggie in the background, he wouldn’t be able to rest unless he could see the rag-doll sprawl of Carl’s limbs, sense the watchful presence of Daryl on the perimeter of the camp.  Happily ever after, the idea of blissful peace the way Eugene sells it, makes his skin crawl. He wouldn’t be able to sleep in a room that wasn’t crammed full of other people; bodies huddled close in the dead of winter, they’ve been living so tightly, compactly, that the distinctions between them blurred long ago. 

Us, Rick thinks, there _is_ only us. 

And us is Maggie and Glenn, the future they want to lead, the children they would leave behind, the world those kids could and _should_ inhabit.  “We haven’t made it out of Georgia in all this time,” Rick says, the fear dragged out of him, exposed by each steady touch.  “Try to head for Washington DC, how many of my people will I lose for Eugene’s sake?  For what, a pipe-dream, white picket fences, peace _we_ won’t see?”  The only peace Rick’s ever known - could rely upon - came with this man.  It’s shared and found among the people he calls family. Daryl’s acceptance, his support, remains a bedrock for Rick - it’s a line of pure gold - hidden under treacherous terrain.

“Hell with it, I ain’t scared, and you've already made up your mind.” 

He fits his mouth over Rick’s with shocking ease, liquid warmth and a questing tongue, draining away the last of Rick's tension.  It’s a lazy kiss, familiar as home, it’s Daryl settling his weight over Rick’s thighs, grounding him in the here and now – the landscape of possibility subverted - it’s his tongue and his teeth, the taste of iron between them; it’s clean skin with a hint of violence, and all of it offered to Rick freely. 

Rick loosens up under the other man’s weight, malleable, if he learnt anything this past year then it was to take nothing for granted, to find those moments of ethereal happiness, of joy, and hold tight with both hands, to run with it unconcerned.  Rick finds the curve of Daryl’s spine, a drawn-out question mark hovering over Rick’s body, made up of sinew and bone, and answers as best he can.  He opens his mouth to the kiss, he digs his hands into Daryl’s back pockets, tugs the material down, exposes the pale curve of a perfect arse.  Rick lets his legs fall wide, allows the other man to settle between; Rick keeps his eyes wide open and fixed.

Daryl’s are closed.  His cheekbones are sharp enough to cut glass on, eyes slitted, mouth small, there’s a feline element to him, angular as a cat.  Rick tangles one hand in Daryl’s hair, uses his gun-hand, the one wiped clean, to get both of their zippers undone.  It’s awkward, a reversal from how Rick normally works himself, there’s not enough slick when he spits in his own hand, the sharp pull on flesh painful.  But it’s immediate – and the stark drive of pleasure/hurt blows other considerations away.  “Who gives a fuck about white picket fences?” Daryl growls.  “That ain’t _us_.” 

Bleeding into each other, bleeding _for_ each other, carving out a home.  Rick doesn’t know where he leaves off and Daryl begins.   He can’t trust Eugene, or anyone outside of his group, but he can trust Maggie and Glenn to make the right call, to fight for the future _they_ want, and he can trust himself to be there for them, to do what’s necessary.  He can trust Daryl to hold him together, standing vigilant at his door. Rick can trust peace will always exist in some form or another, even if his understanding of it altered and changed.  I don’t want to lose anyone else, Rick doesn’t say, Eugene's proposition gnawing at the back of his skull, because everyone dies in the end.  It’s a fact. 

There’s only the people he loves now - and all the ways Rick would fight, would sacrifice for them - those sharp moments of unparalleled joy.

He keeps his eyes wide open.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Writer’s tag on:

 

 

28 Days Later

Washing DC

 

 

“Wait,” Maggie says.  Rick has a hair-trigger reflex, but he's already recognised them, hauling ass down an alleyway with cars strewn about like children’s toys.  Michonne. Glenn.  Eugene.  Rick reloads the rifle, picks off another dozen walkers closing in tight, and then recounts.  Michonne. Glenn.  Eugene…the scientist’s face is ghostly white, there’s blood on his protective vest.  “Daryl?” He shouts down, and then belatedly adds.  “Where’s Ford?”  Michonne and Glenn hold flanking positions, protecting Eugene as he scrambles up the escape ladder to the rooftop, feet skidding off the rungs in his haste.  Rick grabs him by his vest, hauls him over the edge without dignity and dumps him. Michonne and Glenn take to the ladder, practically on top of one another as they put height between themselves and the dead.  Rick scans their faces, stares down at the alleyway swarming with decomposing bodies. “Daryl?” Rick asks again.  His voice sounds flat, distant to his own ears.  Michonne looks toward Eugene, revealing an entire story in one baleful look, she shakes her head. In the background, Maggie pulls Glenn close, arms tight around his spine, her voice a soft murmur. 

“He asked for a bullet,” Michonne reveals. “Hunkered down with his crossbow at a juncture, gave us our chance.”

He won’t make Rick do it – the same way he spared Rick from killing Dale on a farm, one cold night in August, took the decision out of Rick’s hands with calm certainty – the same way Daryl's always tried to make things easier.  He won’t end his story like Merle, either, he won't become one of those things. “Bit,” Rick says, disjointed, hand twisting around the butt of his gun.  “Where?”

“Close to his ribs.”

“No, _where is he_?”  Daryl won’t pull that trigger til the last minute, Rick knows, not until every last arrow is spent, and he’s staring at Eugene with murder in his eyes, with a thousand questions hammering in the back of his skull. Trust – that Daryl will fight until he can’t because that’s the way he’s hardwired – that Eugene wasn’t shitting them about miniscule survival rates on horrendous diseases, that a cure can be administered if a body wasn’t shredded.  It could go any way, in any direction. Rick hasn’t been able to believe in anyone outside of his own people for a long, long time.  “Where is he?”   _Guess I’m leaving Georgia after all,_ Daryl had said, the morning after.  One half of his mouth had quirked in a small smile, he had pulled Rick to his feet with a steadfast hand.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
